Healthy Holiday Pumpkin Pies

Last month I made several kinds of delicious pumpkin pies/cakes for Canadian Thanksgiving. This was the first in many years that I've eaten "real" pumpkin pie. A healthy one though. A gluten free, refined sugar free, and dairy free version of a classic pie that I'm sharing with you today. I also made a raw vegan pumpkin pie which I posted on Sweetly Raw HERE (and where you can find lots of other raw and/or vegan pumpkin recipes).

To recap, I made a completely nut free no-bake vegan pumpkin cheesecake on this blog after getting lots of requests for a nut free dessert. I made this cheesecake three times just to get it perfect to my taste and because I love it so much. In fact, I'm going to make it a fourth time today because I haven't had anything pumpkin in a few weeks, lol.

Here I made the vegan no-bake pumpkin cheesecake on an almond coconut crust and topped it raw caramel sauce and pecans.

Since I didn't get a chance to post my pumpkin pie during our holiday I thought it would be perfect to post now for American Thanksgiving. Of course a big dollop of whipped cream goes perfectly on top, or serve it with a scoop of raw vanilla ice cream on the side (or both ;).

Pumpkin Pie
Dairy Free - Gluten Free- Refined Sugar Free

Crust

For the crust I chose this delicious recipe by Gluten Free Goddess that I made two years ago for thanksgiving.

1 cup flaked unsweetened organic coconut
1 cup pecan pieces
1/2 cup all purpose gluten-free flour blend
1/2 cup coconut sugar or organic light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
5 tablespoons vegan or regular butter (Earth Balance)

Place all of the dry ingredients into a food processor bowl and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Add in the vegan butter and pulse several times in short bursts until the crumbs are moist and begin to fall away from the sides of the bowl.
Dump the crumbs into 9" pie place and spread evenly in the bottom and up the sides using your fingers.
Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 7 minutes- to set. Set aside. 

Filling

I love how this pie filling turned out. I would enjoy it baked without a crust too! Adjust the spices to suit your taste. 

15 oz can pumpkin puree
1 1/4 cup full fat coconut milk 
3 eggs
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, or to taste

Beat or whisk together all ingredients until smooth. Taste, add more spices to your liking (tasting a touch of raw egg won't kill you).
Pour into the baked pie crust. Return to the oven and bake at 350F for 45-60 minutes (the edges will be brown and firm but the center should still be jiggly). 
Cool before eating.

Serve the cooled pie with a generous dollop of whipped cream (multiple recipes here) or raw vanilla ice cream.

I hope you'll try this baked pumpkin pie or the no bake vegan pumpkin cheesecake (nut free version in this blog post).

Happy almost Thanksgiving to my American friends!